A Quote by Tracy Chevalier
Although I always said that I wanted to be a writer from childhood, I hadn't actually done much about it until I came to London.
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I knew from very early on that I wanted kids. I wasn't one of those women who goes, 'Well, if it happens, it happens.' I really wanted a family. Although I didn't actually have my first child until I was 37, I always felt I'd get there.
Although I always loved reading and putting words on paper, I never thought about becoming a writer until I was twelve.
At an early school, when I was about 5, they asked what we wanted to be when we grew up. Everyone said silly things, and I said I wanted to be an actress. So that was what I wanted to be, but what I was, of course, was a writer.
London has become really boring. I mean, years ago, London was really happening - there was swinging London and then punk. It was really different from other cities, and so I'd always wanted to go there and see what was actually going on. After that, hip-hop was the next thing happening, so to get the records or the proper clothing, you really had to actually go to New York. But now you don't really need to go.
I came from a tough childhood. There was a lot of stuff that I'd actually forgotten or that I'd blocked or hidden away until I started addressing it.
I was born in England and brought up in London. When I was 18 I read a book and came across the Dharma. I was halfway through the book when I turned to my mother and said, "I'm a Buddhist," to which she replied, "Oh are you dear? Well finish the book and then you can tell me about it." I realised I'd always been Buddhist but I just hadn't known it existed, because in those days not even the word 'Buddha' was ever spoken. This was in in the 1960s, so there wasn't that much available, even in London.
As a child, I wanted only two things - to be left alone to read my library books, and to get away from my provincial hometown and go to London to be a writer. And I always knew that when I got there, I wanted to make loads of money.
I always wanted to be a professional cricketer, which meant I didn't work as much as I should have done at exams. But, happily, it came off.
I knew I wanted to be a writer. Where I came from, no one was a writer. I came from Long Island, and everyone became a doctor or a lawyer or an engineer or a teacher or a businessman. I didn't know any writers.
But, somewhere in there, I did have the thought that this really fits in with my thinking about what I wanted to do; with what has to be done by a writer in order to stay alive as a writer.
It became clear I wanted to be a development economist. I mean, I said I wanted to work on the economics of poor countries. And I'd actually say that I don't think that was so much about narrowing the gap as about increasing their incomes, which means economic growth, which is really my prime interest.
I'd done a big movie that I wasn't happy with, and I was moving out of London when I got approached about Barton Fink, because my agent said the brothers were in London. We hit it off immediately, and suddenly I found myself on the way to America!
I was very much into science when I was young - I wanted to be a marine biologist, then I wanted to be a doctor, and then something else, I was always changing. Acting didn't come up until much later, probably about 16 or 17. I thought, "Oh, I quite like this."
I think one of the London Film Festival strengths is that it's set in London but it's not about London. It's about the diversity of this city and it's about world cinema. And that's what London is - London is a place where its identity is always in a state of flux. So, this festival celebrates the way in which it is always changing. That's why London is a fascinating place and that's why the film festival is a fascinating film festival.
Nicole and I have always wanted to be winemakers, but we didn't think we would be able to do that until our 50s. But when our friends in Napa came to us and said, 'We really want to do a wine line with you,' how do you say no to that?
Although I have lived in London, I have never really considered London my home because it was always going to be a stopping-off point for me, and it has been too.
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